Sandridge Rovers (away) 23.10.08

In a time when the stock market has seen its spectacular fall matched only by that of the decline of Tottenham Hotspur, the Rose & Crown have found themselves rather unusually challenging for the top spot in the division and had high hopes of securing such a dizzying position at the pinnacle against Sandridge Rovers on Thursday night.
But a spectacular high as seen so often can be followed by a fall equally, if not more spectacular. This was the case on Thursday night as the Rose & Crown crashed to their first defeat of season.

The team found themselves with fewer players for this encounter than willing investors of an Icelandic bank. In fact such was the state of play that the villain of “Fugitive” could have counted all the players on his non prosthetic.
Never the less the team rallied and after securing the services of Paul “Badger” Smith they went with high hopes and a low carbon tyre print.
Already trailing one to nothing by default, the Rose & Crown without Kevin Woods, Dave Noble, Carl Bolding, “the Director of Darts” and Tom Wilson were forced to juggle things about and it looked as if things may well pay off when skipper Alan Turner and new signing “Badger” secured a two leg to one victory to put the Rose & Crown level after the doubles.
It was not to be however, and just like the Northern Rock there was nothing else they could borrow and the collapse came sooner rather than later with only Tony Scott offering any resistance on their way to a 5-3 defeat against a side favoured by many for relegation. At times it was painful to watch as the away team not only struggled against their opponents but also against themselves , one suspects a case of trying to hard. A collective case of not wanting to let each other down in the end resulted in a case of letting themselves down but that’s just inexperience of being in such a lofty position and something from which they must learn if they are now to go on and get anything out of the rest of the season.
Focus must now switch to a home encounter against the Crooked Billet a team they are more than capable of beating, and one can only hope that the Rose & Crown have more players than Tottenham have points for this encounter.